Why is type hinting necessary in PHP?

Question

I am having trouble wrapping my head around the importance of Type hinting in PHP.

Apparently \'type hinting\' in PHP can be defined as follows:

Answer 1

Is it necessary? No

Is it a best-practice? Yes

Which PHP version supports it? PHP 5.6 for classes only, PHP 7+ allows type-hinting for primitives (int, string, boolean, etc) as well.

How is it useful?

1. Getting hints by the IDE (depends on the IDE).
2. Standardizing coding style in team projects.
3. Reducing logic errors.
4. Moving from PHP being lossy-typed language, to kindof-strongly-typed PHP, but keeping the option to use lossy or strongly at the hands of the developers.